Broken Hallelujah
by Jon Chauttock
Summary: "I hate Tigress with a burning passion. I love the girl under the mask, but I hate Tigress, because every time I see her, I remember what I no longer have." One-shot, and rated M for Spitfire smut.


I hate Tigress with a burning passion.

I love the girl under the mask, but I hate Tigress, because every time I see her, I remember what I no longer have.

We had retired together to Palo Alto, going to Stanford together.

We cuddled and kiss and laughed and lived and _loved_. It was perfect.

So naturally, Dick came to her with that damned mission. And she took it.

I rejoined the Team because without Artemis Crock by his side, Wally West had no purpose. No life. No love. There was no point in keeping Wally West around, so I dove into Kid Flash with a new purpose and drive that nobody recognized from me. I stopped being the funny guy who hung around the Cave eating and cracking jokes. I was nothing like Batman, but in the eyes of my teammates, Batman was exactly what I had turned into. I had lost the love of my life, and thus I had lost my love for life itself.

Of course, I know that Artemis is still alive. Someday soon she will return from this mission, and I will hold her in my arms once again. I will run my fingers through her gorgeous blonde hair while staring into her the perfect storms that are her eyes. I will hold her closer to me in bed when she shakes from the cold of the Palo Alto winter or wakes trembling at another nightmare she has had about her father. I will kiss her in the rain like I always would on the rare rainy days in California, because she loved the idea that something so simple as a kiss could make her forget about the rain falling around her, which she likened to her emotional stress.

Kissing in the rain was always her favorite thing.

I sit in the Cave with an angry glare on my face, staring at nothing. I look over at the spot where I kissed her for the first time, and I remember how it felt to finally have my Spitfire. And now Dick Grayson has taken her away from me again, and my expression hardens even more at that thought.

I see M'gann cautiously approach me, an apprehensive look on her face. My personality has been nothing less than hostile over these last few months, and she is afraid to talk to me when I am like this.

"Wally," she says timidly. "I made cookies. Would you like any?"

I think back again to when it was just the original six of us and Zatanna, and M'gann would make cookies for the Team. Her cooking back then was... subpar at best, but I would always eat the cookies anyway, just to try to make her feel better about her feeble cooking attempts. I could always see the appreciation in her eyes as I finished them off, and Artemis would always make fun of me about my eating habits. M'gann is a gourmet chef by this point, but eating the cookies just doesn't feel right to me. Not without Artemis there.

I give M'gann a slight smile. "Thanks, but I'm not feeling hungry right now."

A look of shock shows itself on her face, but she quickly regains her composure, and the look is gone nearly as quickly as it appears. "Alright. I'll leave them in the kitchen if you decide you want some later."

I nod. "Thank you." Bart will eat the cookies within minutes, so M'gann will continue to believe in her cooking, which she now admittedly should. What worries me is the damage my dark personality change is doing to my teammates. They are hesitant to even approach me these days, and I can understand why. However, I have no intention of making any changes. The sun of my life has been blotted out by Dick Grayson - who I have not spoken to since he sent Artemis on her mission - and without the sun's light, then land that is my soul has frozen over.

I hear Dick call the Team to the mission room, and I reluctantly stand and walk over to it.

"Black Manta has dispatched a couple of his soldiers to rob the Gotham Bank. This should be a routine mission, though there is one slight complication - leading their attack is Manta's new right-hand, Tigress." My eyes widen. "We don't have much information on her, but we do know that she is an expert at close-range combat, so do not engage if at all possible. I will lead this mission personally, and I will be taking Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Superboy, and Robin with me."

Five minutes later, I stand with Nightwing and the other three teammates he selected for this mission, awaiting the arrival of Tigress and her team.

"Nightwing, let me handle Tigress."

His eyes widen. He knows why I want to take on the leader of this "team" Manta is sending us.

"I told you, Wally, we're not going to engage her if at all possible."

"Her close-range combat expertise will be useless against my speed. I can handle her."

He nods reluctantly, and then Manta's soldiers are upon us.

Two of them run towards me, guns firing, and I dispatch them without so much as breaking a sweat.

I catch a glimpse of golden hair running towards the bank vaults, and I take off.

I corner Tigress in a vault, and while we may look hostile towards each other, our eyes are communicating a very different message towards each other.

"I'm sorry, Wally," she seems to be saying to me. "This will all be over soon."

"I know," I reply with a slight nod. "I love you, Artemis."

"I love you too, Wally."

And then Superboy and Miss Martian, who have no idea about Artemis' identity, enter the vault with us, and all hell breaks loose.

M'gann telepathically picks up Artemis and hurls her to the ground, with Connor quickly picking her up and hurling her into a wall. I watch, horrified, as Artemis falls to the ground, screaming in pain.

I'm so caught up in the sight that I don't notice the soldier sneaking up behind me until the bullet is already in my side.

I scream in pain and drop to the floor. M'gann picks up the soldier telepathically and hurls him into a wall, knocking him unconscious. Superboy sprints out of the room to go help Nightwing and Robin, and M'gann flies over to me.

"Wally, are you alright?"

"I'll be fine, M'gann. Go help them."

She grimaces, but she nods and quickly flies off.

I slowly stand up and limp over to Artemis.

"Are you okay, Beautiful?"

She nods. "I'm fine. I've had worse."

"You have a horrible poker face."

"I'm a better liar than you, Kid Jeopardizing The Mission! You can't be seen talking to me!"

"I couldn't give a fuck about the mission if I tried. It's been killing me these last few months, Artemis. Not having you is like losing the sun to my Earth, and now the land that is my soul has frozen over."

A tear rolls down her bloody face, and she grimaces in pain. "I know exactly how you feel."

"Then come home!"

"You know I can't do that, Wally."

I'm tired of waiting, so I grab her face and kiss her passionately.

She returns the kiss with as much need as I put into it, our lust overtaking us, everything else now forgotten.

We continue kissing as I start taking off her uniform and she starts taking off mine.

The enormity of this situation astounds me. I am about to have sex with my supposed enemy, who is actually a girl that is presumed dead. I have a bullet in my side, and she has just been thrown into a wall by a man with super strength. And we are in a bank vault.

We skip the foreplay, knowing we don't exactly have much time. We finally break our frenzied kiss as I slowly slide into her, and she moans. She is soaking wet, and I'm already trying not to cum. I begin thrusting into her at the frantic pace of a speedster.

The entire thing takes less than three minutes before I finish.

She finishes right after I do, and she laughs. "You speedsters have to finish first in _everything_ , don't you?"

I grin. "Of course."

Our uniforms are back on within seconds, and I take a moment to check out her wounds and my own.

There are scrapes all over my body, not including the aforementioned bullet wound, and she has blood all over her. I start slowly kissing her body, just trying to take the pain away from her.

She smiles sadly. "You know that I'm going to have to go back to Manta after this."

I nod, grimacing. "Promise me you'll come back alive."

"Promise me that you'll be waiting for me when I do."

"Of course. I'll wait for you forever, Beautiful."

She smiles. "Then you've got a deal, Baywatch." And she disappears into the night.

I drop to the floor, faking unconsciousness as the rest of my Team enters the vault.

I fight for the heroes.

She fights for the villains.

I believe in happy endings.

She believes in endings.

I believe in true love.

She doesn't.

And yet what we have is so perfect that there's nothing I wouldn't give to keep it.

Wrong, but perfect.

A broken hallelujah.

My name is Wally West.

Her name is Artemis Crock.

And this is our broken hallelujah.


End file.
